A Simple Day
by med-anomaly
Summary: A simple day in House's life from 9 to 5. Inspired by requests for a medically accurate differential in fic, the weather of the northeaster US, and the differential game at TWoP. HouseWilson established, but early, relationship.


House often exuded bravado, but as he stepped cautiously from his building, the 'devil may care' attitude was nowhere to be found. Sometimes even extra vigilance fell short of preventing mishaps though.

"Shit," he huffed as his left foot slid on a patch of ice. He couldn't recover quickly enough and landed on his ass. He sat stunned for a moment before assessing the damage. His ass felt decidedly cold and wet and ached a bit, his right ankle felt a little shaky and hurt as he flexed it, but all in all he was fine. He downed a Vicodin and then pushed himself back a couple of feet so his back was against the apartment building. Well-versed in getting up using mostly his left leg for support, he quickly made his way back inside.

He needed to ice his ankle and make sure it wasn't anything serious, but first he needed dry pants. He was pulling off his shoes when his phone started vibrating. He decided whoever was on the other end would make a fitting target for his anger and irritation.

"What?" he practically growled out.

"Well, good morning sunshine," Wilson piped sounding far too cheery. "Cuddy's got a sick doctor turned donor on her hands and is hanging out in your conference room. You might want to try to be on time today."

"Well, then my car picked a great day to crap out on me," House lied smoothly. "What's she wearing?" he added for good measure. He could feel Wilson rolling his eyes.

"I've got a pretty light morning. I'll come get you."

"I've got to wait for the tow-" he stared at the phone a moment slightly surprised and chagrinned by Wilson hanging up. "Truck," he said to the empty room. He quickly got out of his wet pants and pulled on a dry pair.

House pulled his phone back out ready to really unleash his anger and frustration. He flexed his ankle a little, the pain that resulted fueled his tirade.

"Good morning Dr. House," his landlord said tentatively.

"No, it's not, and do you want to know why it's not? Because you have not cleared the apartment walkway even though the lease clearly states that you are supposed to do so. Tell me, is it really so hard to do your job? I hope not, because when you don't do your job, I can't do mine. Either have someone clear the walkway immediately or I'm deducting the cost of a missed day's work from this month's rent. Oh, and there's a patient whose life I'm supposed to be saving today. I'll make sure his family has your name and number so they can sue you directly when he croaks."

"Sorry, I'll send someone over right away."

"You do that," House snapped the phone shut feeling a little better after his rant. He carefully moved to the kitchen, his ass, leg and ankle throbbing. He pulled an ice pack out of the freezer and settled heavily on the couch, tired.

The key turning in the lock warned him of Wilson's impending arrival. He braced himself. He was not really in the mood to deal with other people, but then again, Wilson wasn't exactly other people, he thought to himself.

"Hey, I picked up some bagels," Wilson said. He stopped in his tracks a moment when he got a look at House. He looked older, tired, and in pain. He had been fine when Wilson left for the hospital a few hours ago. The ice pack resting on his ankle was concerning. "What did you do?" he said accusingly.

"I didn't do anything. The super didn't do anything either. That walkway is a death trap."

Wilson winced sympathetically. The roads and walkways were treacherous following the ice storm that had hit the night before. He had hoped the walk would be cleared by the time House left for work.

"How bad?"

"Could have been worse."

"Let me see," he said taking a seat on the table and pulling the ice pack off House's ankle. It was slightly swollen, but didn't look too bad. "It doesn't look broken."  
"It's not."

Wilson nodded keeping his hand on the ankle, pleased that House wasn't shying away from the touch, "Any other war wounds?"

"My ass hurts, want to check that out?" House leered and raised his eyebrows

"The fact that you're sitting on it tells me it's probably fine. And since your usually such a major ass, swelling would be pretty hard to detect."

"Oh, such wit," House said shortly, closing his eyes. He was hurting and just wanted to rest. Wilson reached over and stroked House's forehead for a minute. House was surprised by Wilson's touch and even more surprised that he found it warm and comforting, he leaned into it. He was beginning to remember some of the things he liked about being in a relationship. Thinking of himself and Wilson as a couple felt both premature and long overdue; it was at once very new and very familiar. Wilson had only moved in days earlier, but House wasn't one to do things half-way. Once they had made the decision to give it a shot, he was all in.

"You might as well head back to the Queen of the Night. Let her know I have to wait for the tow truck, but will be in later," House said tiredly.

Wilson moved his hand along the side of House's face, raising his chin up slightly. House reflexively opened his eyes and looked into Wilson's which wore a slightly puzzled look that clearly said, 'don't you know me at all?'

"I'm not leaving this apartment until the super does his job. Damn slacker would never get it done if I'm not here to crack the whip," House whined.

"Oh right, and the fear of falling again has nothing to do with it." He looked at House appraisingly. He could tell House was trying to hide the fact that he was in more pain than usual as he stared at Soapnet's replay of General Hospital. Wilson wasn't sure if it was the circumstance or the increased pain or just the toll of the morning, but House looked as if he had aged five years over night. Wilson wanted nothing more than to wrap him up and lay in bed all day with him. He smiled at how good the thought felt. Things between him and House were new, but good.

"Why don't you take the day off?"

"For a sprained ankle? Please, I'm fine."

"You don't look fine."

"Oh stop it. I slipped on some ice, I'll live. Your patients on the other hand might not be so lucky without the dashing Dr. Wilson there to hold their hands. Actually, they might not be so lucky even with you there to hold their hands."

Wilson's mouth formed a tight, flat line as he shook his head in exasperation before leaving to find some plates. He could hear someone hacking away at the ice as he handed House his bagel.

About an hour later they made their way to the hospital.

"You know switching to crutches for a few days would probably be a good idea," Wilson said as he watched House's ponderous, painful limp.

"You know shutting the fuck up would probably be a good idea," House said snottily, but he didn't protest when Wilson took his backpack from him.

"House, how nice of you to finally join us," Cuddy said sarcastically when they reached his office.

"He slipped on some ice this morning. He's not in a good mood," Wilson whispered to Cuddy, who looked concerned for a moment.

"How can you tell the difference?" she whispered back.

"New case," she said turning to House who had settled in a chair without a word, garnering some strange looks from his fellows. "Dr. Shah, used to work here, no one can figure out what's wrong with him."

"Gimme," he said reaching for the file. He put one hand over his eyes and pointed with the other. "Eeny, meeny, miney, mo," he landed on Chase. "All right, Chase, coffee and case presentation, go." House took off his coat and didn't look up until after Cuddy and Wilson's retreating footsteps had disappeared.

"48 year-old male came in suffering from hemoptysis and microhematuria. Two month history of fever and epistaxis-"

"Whoa, 2 month history of epistaxis? The man would be long dead, care to edit your statement?"

"Right, 2 month history of _intermittent_ epistaxis. He figured it was acute sinusitis and treated himself with azithromycin. Couple of days later he felt "ear pressure" and his tonsils were worse so he switched to amoxicillin-clavulanic acid. He seemed to get better, but a week later he was having athralgias and night sweats. He then went to his doctor who put him on levofloxacin, but the symptoms continued. He's since developed a productive cough with thick white, blood streaked sputum and bloody post nasal drip," Chase finished, handing House a cup of coffee.

"So, he's dripping bloody liquid from everywhere, and failed to prove the old "physician heal thyself" adage, wonderful. Hmm…decent coffee. You get to continue."

"He has a history of allergic rhinosinusitis, has never smoked, and isn't a big drinker. He traveled to the Dominican Republic five months ago on a medical mission and has traveled extensively in the Caribbean, Central America and Europe."

"Oh goody, another bleeding-heart-trying-to-save-the-world-physician, and it sounds like he might be dying. He's just your type," House threw Cameron an exaggerated grin.

"Right, vitals, temp. was 99, pulse 80, respirations 20, BP 110/70, sats. were 94 on ambient air and pain was a 2 out of 10," she said in an annoyed tone.

"Hey, don't get your granny panties in a bunch. Just because he hasn't asked you out yet, doesn't mean he won't. Labs?"

Foreman chimed in, "CBC showed a white count of 13,200, RBCs 4.3 and platelets 412,000, Chem-8 was normal except he was slightly hypokalemic at 3.2. That's all we have on him so far."

"So, Dr. Do Good is feeling bad, peeing, coughing, and sniffling out blood and has achy joints? Head's up!" Foreman easily caught the marker that was sailed his way. "You get to run the board today. All right people, dazzle me with your brilliance."

"Could be TB," Cameron suggested.

"This feels awfully familiar. He's getting more attractive by the minute, isn't he? Get a chest X-ray and sputum sample, test for acid fast bacilli, and put him in isolation in case we have a copy-cat patient on our hands."

"Could be sarcoidosis, we should check for hilar lymphadenopathy and infiltrates on the chest x-ray and check his serum calcium."

House nodded at this, his hand traveling to his thigh under the table.

Foreman stopped writing for moment. "Given his history, it could be allergic aspergillosis," he declared assertively.

"Could be, and because it was your suggestion, you get to play with his snot. Check for hyphae and Charcot-Leyden crystals," House said displaying an exaggerated expression of disgust. "All right. Go, do. I'll be in my office, come find me when you know something."

House took some of the muscle relaxants Wilson had insisted he bring with him along with his Vicodin and settled into his comfortable chair, propping his right leg up on the ottoman. He had a stack of back issues of JAMA to get through. A new issue every week was really too frequent for his taste. By the time his fellows came back from running the tests, he had dozed off.

"I woke him the last time this happened," Foreman said opting out of the discussion.

"All right fine, rock, paper, scissors? Loser has to wake him," Chase said looking at Cameron.

"Fine," Cameron said with a sigh. They played a round.

"Damn, best two out of three?" Chase pleaded as Cameron's paper covered his rock.

"Dude, you lost fair and square dude. That means you've got to wake him up," Foreman said, happy he was out of the competition.

"Oh no, don't look at me. You know he's in even more pain than usual today thanks to this Nor'easter. I do not want to be the one he directs that rage at. You lost the shoot out, you do it."

Their attempts at being quiet failed. House opened his eyes, "Oh, don't worry darlings. I have enough rage to direct at all of you. Gimme," he said reaching for the x-ray. "All right, so the chest x-ray shows multiple bilateral patchy and ground glass opacities. But, no hilar lymphadenopathy, so sarcoid's out," he said holding the film up to the light. Foreman had brought the white board in from the conference room and crossed out sarcoidosis. "What else do you have for me?"

"Calcium was normal too. No evidence of hyphae or Charcot-Leyden crystals," Foreman added crossing out Aspergillosis.

"There were a few acid-fast bacilli present, but only a few. We're going to retest," Cameron said.

"So, TB's still on the table, but unlikely," House replied distractedly, clearly thinking about what else it could be.

"What about Wegener's?" Chase suggested.

House thought about it for a moment. "It fits. Get a c-ANCA and biopsy to confirm."

They filed out to run the test.

House went back to reading. He was absently rubbing his thigh when Wilson came in. The fall, and not being able to walk around much on account of his ankle was catching up with him. He abruptly stopped when Wilson entered, not wanting to hear any more about why crutches were a great idea.

"Here, I brought you a sandwich," Wilson said handing it to him.

"Thanks, mom," House said a little bitterly.

"Oh, keep that sulk up much longer and I'll let you starve," he said snatching the sandwich back.

"Fine, thank you oh kind and benevolent Dr. Wilson for taking pity on poor cripples such as myself," House said in a tone that dripping with saccharine sweetness as he held out his hand and batted his eyelashes at Wilson, who couldn't help but smile.

"How's the case going?"

"Looks like Wegener's. Just waiting on confirmation."

Wilson nodded. "Well, half of my patient's cancelled today on account of the weather. So, I'm ready to go home whenever you are. I can do paperwork from there." Wilson had lingered a moment on the word home, it felt good in his mouth. It had been too long since he'd been able to call a place home. Whatever this was between him and House, and he wasn't sure he was ready to put a label on it, it felt nice. He was smiling more than he had in a long time.

Wilson was getting bored with the latest budget proposal when his cell phone vibrated once, indicating a text message. He didn't have to check to know who it was from when he read the two-word message.

"Sexy Time!" he let out an amused puff of air, hearing House's best Borat impression when he read it. He quickly gathered his things, closed up his office, and made his way over to House's.

House had struggled to his feet before sending the text, not caring to share how much of an effort it was with Wilson. He had his coat on and was ready to go by the time Wilson arrived. "It was Wegener's," he said ushering Wilson out before he could even step inside. Wilson reached over to grab his backpack. House stilled him for a moment and gave him a sweet peck on the lips.

"What was that for?"

"Because I can," House said simply.

"Let's go home," Wilson said happily.


End file.
